


Partaking in Intricate Rituals to Touch the Skin of Other Men

by citrus_ebooks



Category: Kamen Rider Ryuki
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff without Plot, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 07:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17596826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrus_ebooks/pseuds/citrus_ebooks
Summary: Shinji and Tezuka hug and Tezuka has a lot of feelings about that.





	Partaking in Intricate Rituals to Touch the Skin of Other Men

They had fought together before of course; back to back, two of them against what seemed, to Shinji, like the world, and was actually about six or seven power-drunk bastards in masks. But this time is different.

This time, as soon as their time is up and the pair stumbles through the looking-glass back into the waking world, Shinji clamps his arms around Tezuka, tight, steadying his punch-drunk walk. Tezuka feels with reawakened senses Shinji’s forehead touch gently to the nape of his neck with a sigh. His hair, soft, but damp with sweat, tickles.

He stifles a laugh, not that Shinji can see it.

“Kido. I can walk on my own.”

Shinji’s breath trips on a word unformed.

Tezuka attempts to unwrap Shinji’s arms from his waist, but he holds on like a vice.

“Kido,” Tezuka said, voice softer but insistent. “I’m okay. Atori isn’t that far. I can make it back fine.” He stops struggling with Shinji’s arms and lets his own, still sore from the battle, hang to the side.

Shinji retreats like a bolt of lightning in reverse. A lot faster than his initial reluctance made Tezuka expect, anyways. The not-Shinji air on his back feels a little too cold now.

“Right! Right. We can’t just stay here in the street! Yeah!” He shoves his hands almost violently into his pockets and whips his head away, gold hair bouncing in his face.

He mutters to himself a little more as they stumble back to the café, fluster and bluster eventually settling into silence.

Then they’re sitting in their shared room, wounds cleaned and dressed with Yui’s help (she was up, worried sick) and Shinji’s sweaty hair and the rest of their bodies showered. It’s peaceful. Ren’s fucked off to somewhere despite it being the middle of the night. Tezuka doesn’t really care as long as he isn’t starting fights.

“Tezuka,” Shinji breaks the comfortable silence. He’s sitting on the bed, and Tezuka sits on the floor with his back against the side of it.

“Have you ever hugged someone before?”

He plays along and answers.

“Yes, I have.”

“Of course you have!”

Shinji nods intensely, scratches his head bashfully, and looks to the wall.

“Duh. I mean you’ve probably hugged your parents or childhood friends or something like that...”

Silence. It’s pretty awkward.

“The last time someone held me like that was the night Yuuichi died.”

He doesn’t know why he admits that, or why his boyfriend now dead and gone is what comes to mind, or why he sometimes sees the same things he loved about him in Shinji’s soft brown hair and kind eyes. Some things fortunetelling just can’t answer. He puts his hands together, looks down and feels the bandages around his fingers. He feels his ring, and Yuuichi’s ring.

Shinji isn’t Yuuichi. He knows that.

He lets it hang in the air a little. Feeling Shinji’s eyes on him, he meets them with a turn of the head and continues.

“So, Kido. Was that one?”

“One what?”

“A hug.”

“No! What! I was helping you up!” Shinji shakes his head back and forth, like a dog getting dry. Some drops from his freshly showered hair actually land on Tezuka’s skin. It’s charming.

“I told you I could walk fine, you know.”

Shinji pouts. “I just thought, you’re the only one by my side, so,” (at this Tezuka’s heart swells a little, with a feeling like pride. It’s a bit giddying.) “friends gotta help friends! Or something! You’ve helped me up lots of times!”

Tezuka laughs through his nose.

“You mean…” He swallows the ache from his injuries, because wincing would make his line delivery a lot less suave, seats himself on Shinji’s bed, and shuffles a little closer, next to him. This time it’s Tezuka’s turn to pout.

“You don’t want a hug?”

“No!”

Tezuka stares at him expectantly. Shinji gives.

“...Unless you want one…”

“I do.”

“Welp!” Shinji huffs. He rubs his nose with a finger, and in all his generosity declares, “Guess it can’t be helped! C’mere!”

Shinji practically jumps into Tezuka’s arms, metaphorical tail wagging, and this time they hug, properly. Tezuka wastes no time burying his face into the crook of Shinji’s neck. His vision becomes a sea of soft brown hair. He breathes in and sighs.

He can’t really tell what sort of scent this shampoo is supposed to be, but it’s good. He tells Shinji as such, in the least creepy way possible.

“You smell good,” he murmurs against Shinji’s skin and feels him startle a little at the contact. He hadn’t known what to do with his hands, but now he opts to tangle them in Shinji’s hair. To illustrate his point.

Shinji pretty much nuzzles him and leans into Tezuka. He laughs nervously. His voice is kind of shy when he replies, “Wow, uh. You think so?”

He reminds Tezuka of a puppy. Inspired, he pets Shinji’s head as he hums his agreement. This is very nice. Shinji shifts a little.

They were sitting with their legs hanging off the bed before, so now that they were hugging, Shinji had to lean over. Tezuka let go of Shinji a little reluctantly, taking notice of Shinji’s confused look at the sudden pause of their embrace, and adjusts himself. He pats his lap and spreads his arms welcomingly.

Shinji actually takes up his offer, wrapping his legs around Tezuka’s torso and bringing their faces that much closer. Shinji’s hair tickles his cheek.

Was it fair of him to be doing this, when he still wore his memories of Yuuichi on his hands and on his heart?

Shinji definitely wasn’t Yuichi, Tezuka reminded himself, no matter what that little voice of self-loathing told him. He traced observations with his fingertips — Shinji’s flushed face, his hair and his arms and his hands. Shinji’s hands, he realised as he held them, were something he wanted to protect, along with the rest of him.

Hooking his hands behind Tezuka’s head and pressing their foreheads together, Shinji brings him back to the present.

“I wanted to protect you”, Shinji blurts out.

A laugh trickles from Tezuka’s lips. “Yes?”

“I know it’s lame! But earlier today.” Shinji laughs too, his face brightening like a sun at night. Like it was somehow more embarrassing than the rest of this situation, or like Tezuka hadn’t just thought the same thing. It was cute. 

“You asked if that was a hug. I just wanted to hold you, and-” His face and voice softened.

“You don’t have to protect me, Kido…”

“But I _want_ to.”

Why was Tezuka so fond of that ridiculous stubbornness of his? It defies reason. If it wasn’t because Shinji was like Yuuichi, then why? Why did it feel natural to hold him close like he once did with Yuuichi? Why did the way his heart squeezed feel like the answer to a question he didn’t know?

And suddenly, he knew.

“Kido.”

“I know, I know, you can fight on your own and all bu-“

“Can I kiss you?”

He trails his hand down Shinji’s cheek and tilts his chin to a good kissing angle. Even after that revelation, he couldn’t resist being extra just to see Shinji’s reaction.

“Sure, kiss me all over and- What the hell are you talking about?!”

Shinji smacks him lightly. Ouch.

“Wasn’t that where all this cuddling was going to end up, anyways?”

“You don’t know that!”

Putting on his most mysterious omniscient fortune teller face, Tezuka declared, “I do. I saw it.”

“You’re lying! And, wait, this is _not_ cuddling.”

“What else does one do when you have the person you love sitting in your lap?”

“ _Love?!_ ”

“Most people only ask for kisses from people they’re in love with, Kido.”

“I know that!! I just,”

Shinji buries his face, oddly enough, not in his hands, but in Tezuka’s shoulder.

“You don’t just ask like _that_!”

“How would you want me to ask, then.”

“I don’t know!”

Shinji made an exasperated sound. Like a growl, but like if a very small yappy dog did it instead of something actually threatening. He pecked a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of kiss on Tezuka’s cheek, lips pursed shut like a fishy-lipped kissy face cartoon.

“There! Happy?”

It involved way too much force and was more like Shinji bonking his face onto Tezuka’s cheekbone for a split-second, but… he was happy.

He tried his hardest to hide the smile threatening to blow his cover.

“No.”

“No?!”

Tezuka shook his head emphatically.

“One more?”

Shinji squirms in Tezuka’s embrace, but obliges. Slowly, probably because he’s aware of how slamming his mouth into Tezuka’s cheek hurts now, he smooches a hesitant kiss to Tezuka’s cheek once more. Tezuka actually gets to enjoy the warmth of Shinji’s lips against his skin now.

“Thank you. Now, my turn.”

“ _Your_ turn?!”

“I asked if I could kiss you. Not for you to kiss me,” he cups Shinji’s face in his hands, “though that _was_ nice.”

Shinji grumbles – he’s been had! – and turns red, but doesn’t move away. He lets Tezuka bring their faces closer, closer, and his eyes flutter shut.

Just before their lips touch, Tezuka whispers something almost inaudible, like “are you sure?”

Shinji answers by sucking in a breath and crashes his lips to Tezuka’s. Hard.

Their noses bump but the strange feeling swelling in his chest Tezuka had thought was pride but he now realises is love, just love, threatens to burst and overflow, and he lets it. He presses kisses to Shinji’s mouth and some of them miss and land on the side of his lips, on his cheek, and Shinji licks Tezuka’s lips and turns all the worries he had before into mush.

It’s messy and sloppy and Shinji kisses with a lot of lip and a lot of teeth and a lot of tongue and a lot of heart, as enthusiastic and determined and warm as he is when he’s, you know, not kissing. It’s so very Shinji and it makes Tezuka want to kiss him even more, if that was possible. He nudges his nose against Tezuka’s, hungry, and his hands are tugging at Tezuka’s hair and Tezuka predicts through the haze of so much feeling that ending up horizontal would be a bad idea even though he so wants to let Shinji push him down with over-enthusiastic kisses and lose his balance and just let it happen, so, so badly.

He hadn’t even known he’d wanted this, but _finally_.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is self indulgent because I get to picture Tezuka with actually washed hair. The part where he can’t identify Shinji’s shampoo is because he’s never smelled shampoo ever before in his life.


End file.
